I do not know how you like to pass your leisure hours, but I personally am very fond of visiting various entertainments, balls, concerts, etc. Just recently, I went to an entertainment given by the Leavitt Street organization. I arrived at their affair at four o'clock, because it was advertised that the musical program of the evening would begin at five. But as is the usual case among us Russians, the concert began much later. The artists were excellent, but most of the music I had heard played before. Miss Sokolova sang very beautifully; Madam Maxakoia was enthusiastically applauded when she gave her interpretation of a number of popular Russian songs.

The audience was delighted with the performance of the Black Hussars, 2even though the Hussars did not wear mustaches. That was really a shame, an unmitigated shame, indeed. If anything like that had happened under the Czar's regime, the Hussars would have been imprisoned. But when the sketch "Burlaki" [boatmen] appeared, the master of ceremonies spoiled the performance by thrusting himself forward.....The burlaki were real Volga boatmen; they were in rags...and they had patent leather slippers on their feet. The gypsy chorus would also have been excellent if they had remembered to bring along a guitar because gypsies can scarcely sing without it. The guitar was conspicuously absent.

On February 16, I attended an affair arranged by our Democratic Club. The performance was good, but there was no applause from the audience because there was no audience. I don't know why people didn't attend because the play was entertaining. Chicago actually possesses one actor who knows how to entertain the public and how to provoke laughter, even among the most indifferent audience. This man is worth his weight in gold. He 3should have been invited for the [whole] evening, and the audience would have remembered his performance to the end of their lives.

Well, well, Independents [Translator's note: members of Russian Independent Mutual Aid Society], you have undertaken a worth-while jeb, but it isn't an easy one, and you will need help from the outside, even though there are a lot of you. Tell me, if you please, who will attend your affairs when you offer such poor entertainment? You are all grown-up men and yet you are not at all businesslike. I do not say this with any feeling of hostility. I speak sincerely, giving you my impressions as an onlooker.

There is one thing more which I wish to mention. Although there are many Russians, or rather, people of Russian descent, in Chicago, one always sees the same faces at the affairs; this is partly the fault of those who arrange the musical and dramatic parts of the programs because they are usually very stereotyped. We need singers who would vary their 4repertory; the same is true of the dancers, for their performances lack variety. There is a Cossack dance at the Independents' affair; the crowd from Leavitt Street also puts on a Cossack dance; Cossack art is presented, for the third time in succession, by an organization from the Douglas Park section. The Democrats, who are afraid that they may lag behind, put on another Cossack dance. There are other dances and dancers; why not bill something else? Why not introduce a Cossack's wife for a change, who has had some previous training? Let the Cossacks rest for awhile. It is true that their dances are good and their performances unexcelled, but they are becoming monotonous to a degree of boredom.

Then, the organizers of these entertainments should remember that even though we are all Russians, many of us speak and understand Ukrainian, and it would be to the advantage of all concerned if some Ukrainian art were included from time to time in the programs so that immigrants 5from the provinces of Kiev, Volyn, Poltava, and others might enjoy their own art. Let the artists prepare something good for us too, otherwise we may feel we are being slighted.

On March 3, an entertainment is being arranged for the benefit of unfortunate Russian orphans abroad. This entertainment I shall attend without fail. Even if there is no program at all, I will be there just the same, for it is imperative that those poor kids be helped. They are not to blame for anything that has happened. The whole world, it seems, has turned upside down. People rob and murder one another, and innocent children have to bear the consequences and suffer. The situation of the orphans is particularly pitiful. Ragged and hungry, they stretch their emaciated arms toward us. Here in America, children do not suffer. When papa works, mama gives them milk and cake. And even the Relief will give them milk if father fails to earn a living. Our children do not die of hunger and cold. Just think of what is happening in Europe. The children 6there are in dire circumstances. We cannot help a great deal, but each one of us can give at least a quarter for this sacred cause; help the orphans, the victims of human madness. Many of them are left alone in this cruel world, without any help except that which can be rendered through the generosity of strangers.